The Translation Of Genesis 15:6

In this post1)NOTE: you can read or download a PDF version of this posting here – Sept2016 – Whose Righteousness – God’s or Abram’s?. we’ll conduct an in-depth examination of Genesis 15:6, a verse that is critically important to the Protestant theology of justification by faith alone. All Bibles, of which I am aware, interpret this verse as God justifying Abram (i.e., imputing righteousness to Abram) on the basis of Abram’s faith.

Whether this is a valid, supportable translation of this verse is, therefore, an important question. Accordingly, we begin by noting a basic problem with the English translations, i.e., they all add words not attested in the Hebrew. Now, this is not necessarily bad practice unless the added words give rise to ambiguity or no linguistic or contextual foundation exists to support the added word(s).

We begin with the KJV’s translation of Genesis 15:6.

And he believed in the LORD; and hecounted it to him for righteousness.

The KJV translators added the pronoun ‘he’ (colored red) which leads to a profound ambiguity. Is God or Abram the antecedent of ‘he’? Taken by itself, there is no linguistic or contextual reason to choose one or the other2)However, as far as I know, no Bible translates 15:6 such that Abram is the antecedent of ‘he’..

The NRS translators get around the ambiguity by inserting the words “the LORD“3)יהוָה – variously translated as Adonai, Yahweh, Jehovah, or the LORD for the subject of counted 4)יַּחְשְׁבֶהָ – variously translated as ‘reckoned‘, ‘credited‘, or ‘accepted‘ in the various English translations as the antecedent. Here’s the NRS translation:

And he believed the LORD; and the LORDreckoned it to him as righteousness.

( NOTE: The substituted phrase is colored red)

The problem with the NRS translation is that the Hebrew, יהוָה, is not contained in the second clause the Hebrew of 15:6! If you do not have a Hebrew Bible, here is 15:6 as it appears in the Hebrew. The first clause is colored brown, the second clause is colored orange:

וְהֶאֱמִן בַּיהוָהוַיַּחְשְׁבֶהָ לּוֹ צְדָקָה

Examine both clauses and note that since יהוָה does not appear in the second clause, the NRS translation cannot be supported.

The Septuagint makes a different, but more subtle translation mistake in order to eliminate the ambiguity. They simply translate into Greek the Hebrew verb corresponding to ‘counted’ (ἐλογίσθη5)= indicative, aorist, passive, 3rd person singular) using the passive voice.Translated this way, the Septuagint’s translation reads,

And Abram believed God, and it was counted6)Passive form of ‘counted’to himfor righteousness.

But, this doesn’t really work either – for two reasons. First, it simply transfers the ambiguity from the subject of ‘counted’ to its object pronoun, ‘him’ (colored red). Thus, if the antecedent of ‘him’ is Abram, the subject of ‘counted’ must be God and all is consistent with the Christian theology of “justification by faith alone”. If, however, the antecedent is God, then Abram is doing the counting and it’s God’s righteousness that is in view, not Abram’s.

Second, the underlying Hebrew verb from which the Greek was translated7)יַּחְשְׁבֶהָ – Qal, waw consecutive imperfect, 3rd person with a 3rd person, singular suffix is not in the passive voice. It’s in the active voice. Thus, the use of “it was reckoned” is simply not attested. The Septuagint’s version constitutes a rather gross mistranslation.

So, what if these (and other) translators had just translated the actual Hebrew without adding additional words or using misconjugated verbs? Had they done so, the result would be unambiguous. So, let’s dig into this idea of simply translating the Hebrew as it appears in the text. Here is a literal rendering of the text:

“Then-he-believed in-the-LORD and-reckoned-it to-him righteousness.”

(NOTE: the hyphenated English words are translated from a single Hebrew word. For example, the first Hebrew word, וְהֶאֱמִן, translates to the three English words “Then-he-believed“

Grammatically this translation is completely correct and accurately reflects the Hebrew source. No words are inserted and the grammar is correct. So, what can we say about its interpretation?

Grammatically, the Hebrew of 15:6 consists of two independent clauses. Note that the subject of the verb ‘believed’ (הֶאֱמִן) in the first clause is Abram 8)From context – see the previous verse but the subject of the verb in the second clause is not, as we’ve seen, explicit. If the subject is not explicit, how does this make the text less ambiguous?

Actually, it does not. Recall your high school grammar and the rules governing implied subjects when dealing with multiple clauses (Hebrew and most other languages have the same rules). The rule is this: if two clauses in the same sentence are independent but only the first clause has an explicit subject, the the verb of the second subject is the same as the subject in the first clause. An example might be more illuminating.

Jim drove to the shopping center and walked home.

By the multiple clause rule, Jim is the subject of ‘walked’. Now, here’s another example constructed to be analogous to Genesis 15:5-6:

Mr. Anderson, Jim’s father took his son to the Mercedes dealer and promised that, upon graduation from college, Jim would have the pick of any car on the lot. He knew his dad would keep his promise and thought him generous.

In the first sentence (analogous to 15:5), Mr. Anderson (like God) makes a promise to his son, Jim (like Abram). In the second sentence (analogous to 15:6), Jim (Abram) takes his dad’s (God’s) promise as a certainty and, accordingly, regards his dad (God) as generous.

Now, applying this analogy (and the grammar rule) to 15:5, the verse correctly reads as Abram declaring the righteousness of God. The verse is not about Abram’s faith, but God’s.

Translation Details

Commentary

וְהֶאֱמִן (və·he·emin)

This verb is structured with a vav prefixed to the verb’s perfect form indicating a non-consecutive narrative10)i.e., this clause is not part of a narrative sequence of clauses or it is the termination of a narrative sequence.. If the composer of the narrative had wanted to show a simple narrative sequence, he would have used the vav consecutive with the preterite. The perfect with vav conjunctive can have a variety of discourse functions, but here it probably serves to highlight Abram’s response to God’s promise by recognizing and attesting God’s righteousness – see discussion of vayyachshəveha below.

In the Hiphil (causative) stem, this verb means “to cause to be certain, sure” or “to be certain about,” “to be assured of.” In this sense the word in the Hiphil conjugation is commonly translated as “believed”. Unfortunately, the modern conception of belief, in contrast to its ancient biblical meaning, has become a simple interior assent to the existence of a material object or agreement with an abstract idea.

In the causative sense of the verb, the clause claims that Abram came to be certain of the LORD’s promises over the course of the biblical narrative beginning in chapter 1211)See, for example, De Gruyter, Walter, Genesis 15: A Theological Compendium of Pentateuchal History, pp 80-82. The first clause, then, is about Abram having come to certainty that the LORD’s promises would be fulfilled. By using the Hiphil stem to terminate a narrative, the LORD’s promise of many descendents was the last drop of glue cementing Abram’s confidence in God’s faithfulness, i.e., fulfilling His promises.

Note the second word, בַּיהוָה, (ba·A·do·nai) is the name of the LORD prefixed with the preposition (Bet). Bet is most commonly translated as ‘in’, so that “in the LORD” is a reasonable translation. However, given the discussion of the previous verb, Abram’s belief is grounded in God’s promise, not the person of God. This becomes clear in the discussion of the second verb, וַיַּחְשְׁבֶהָ(vay·yach·shə·ve·ha), translated as “and-reckoned-it” – see below.

וַיַּחְשְׁבֶהָ(vayyachshəveha):

Vayyachshəveha translates into three English words, “and-reckoned-it“, where ‘reckoned’ is a third person masculine singular verb. As such the ‘he’ is implied, not explicit. In many cases, it is safe to add ‘he’ to 3rd person, masculine singular verbs so long as the added pronoun does not cause the kind of ambiguity exemplified in most English translations of 15:6.